Storm Along
by litotes
Summary: Two years after the movie, a horrible menace known as Vince Brun is tormenting the Caribbean. Even Captain Jack Sparrow has been bested by the man. Jack receives an anonymous letter to do something about it.


Disclaimer: I do not have permission to be using the infamous Captain Jack Sparrow in this story. Please don't sue me.

AN (7/21): Ahoy. Hope you enjoy the first chapter. The title is subject to change, but I'd like feedback in the form of reviews as to if you like the plot or not.

**Storm Along: Chapter One**

"How _exactly_ didja escape?" a man with one large and quite distracting black eyebrow asked after taking a large swill of whiskey from a dirty mug that'd met more lips than the most experienced strumpet on this rock. Curiosity and something akin to idolatry shone in his disarmingly free-of-color eyes. They looked like ice with a few specks of blue matter randomly sprinkled about, as though a painter had run out of all his paints except just a smidgen of blue and was desperate to make art regardless of his lamentable situation. He'd already had quite a few drinks already, judging by the pungent odor of alcohol wafting about and threatening to kill a peony lovingly placed in a naïve strumpet's auburn hair.

The man he was speaking to, truthfully, was having a hard time paying attention to his undesired companion's unusually pleasant voice. Not only were they in the noisiest tavern on the island, he was waiting for someone important to show up. He'd received an anonymous letter from someone asking him to be here this very night at approximately this time. Unfortunately, the bloke sitting across from him had accosted him as soon as he'd sat down at this particular table in the corner of _Phelp's Tavern_. He hadn't even had a chance to drink his favorite depressant, yet, because of the rather silly questions and comments this 'Nate' had attacked him with.

"Captain," Nate said impatiently, waiting until the captain's dark brown eyes finally stopped on what he incorrectly assumed were his own odd eyes. "How _did_ you get away from Brun?" Nate was obviously very anxious to find out this particular tidbit of information because the look in his odd eyes was even more intense than it'd been before. The drunkards around the table all seemed to be anxious to hear the answer as well; they'd stopped their pointless squabbling to "indiscreetly" glance towards the unlikely companions. One haggard-looking sailor actually forgot he had smoke in his mouth from smoking a rather poorly wrapped cigar and nearly choked as he awaited the answer of the rather disgruntled captain.

The captain was actually staring at Nate's eyebrow, but he did hear the rather annoying question this time. It was the word Brun that caught his attention like stepping onto cold stones after spending the night with a particularly fetching young woman. Brun means brown, in French, but the captain and most of the Caribbean really thought it should mean 'blood' 'heartless' or 'sadistic and maniacal menace trying to take over the entire Caribbean.' Vince Brun was the newest Blackbeard; he was a newcomer who had paved his way to fame in innocent blood. Everyone feared Brun, from the smallest child capable of comprehending fear to the oldest and stodgiest aristocrat living off a vast fortune largely inherited. The English Navy was at a rather rare loss as to what to do. Every ship that flew the Union Jack that ran across the aptly named _Terror_ was now at the bottom of the ocean. According to the latest rumor, the Dutch, French, Spanish and English had put aside their differences temporarily to try and get rid of Brun before the death toll reached tens of thousands. It seemed unlikely, but the situation in the Caribbean was growing far bleaker than it had ever been under the hands of Hector Barbossa, two years previously.

Which is what made the feat of the captain sitting across from Nate that much more spectacular. He'd been in a tavern similar to this one, a few weeks ago, drinking his favorite type of rum when some drunkard had the nerve to bet that he couldn't steal something from Brun's captain quarters. Never one to let someone sully his good and perfectly infamous reputation, the captain had taken up the bet. When he'd found the _Terror_ a fortnight later (Brun always seemed to know when someone had stupidly decided to come looking for him), he'd realized that perhaps wounded pride would be easier to handle than being dead would be. His ship sustained a _lot_ more damage than it had ever had before, but somehow the infamous pirate captain had managed to get something of Brun's and get away. It was really something he'd rather not talk about (his remaining crew felt similarly), but everyone with any amount of backbone whatsoever questioned him whenever he happened to step anywhere where people happened to be clustering or going about their business or getting ready to drown themselves in the playful Caribbean. That's why he'd been avoiding people, lately. Pity he was too curious about the sender of the letter to keep to his own business this evening, wasn't it?

"Captain?" Nate questioned yet again, leaning in closer as he examined a rather nasty cut on the captain's left cheek that ran from slightly below his eye down to his chin. The mustache the man used to wear had to be shaved off, since it would be rather odd to walk around with only half a mustache. The cut was rumored to have come from Brun's own sword. It looked like it caused him a lot of pain; he was wincing much more than usual and would sometimes subconsciously press against the wound in an attempt to make it stop hurting when he had a drink or ate something.

"Oh…right," the captain said, frowning slightly at Nate as he instinctively moved further back in his seat. He liked it when _he_ invaded the personal space of others, not when they did it to him. The reassuring noises from the numerous trinkets tied in his tangled dark locks mitigated the frown somewhat, but he really wasn't in the mood to answer questions. Half of him was severely tempted to make up some fantastic story to explain it all, but he was reasonably sure that he'd have to explain it all the correct way whenever whomever had written him the letter appeared. "On me ship, of course," he said almost airily, deciding to give an incredibly literal answer. There was something in his voice that definitively said 'stop asking me questions' because Nate grunted in an annoyed way and left the captain to his own thoughts.

Once Nate was gone, the captain lifted his lamentably full mug to his lips and took a large drink of the burning liquid and ignored the dull twinge of pain the cut in the corner of his lip was giving him. "Good stuff," he complimented the mug before coughing lightly. All the drunkards who'd been eavesdropping looked disappointed and turned back to their own mugs of alcohol, clearly sensing that they wouldn't hear any answers yet.

Sighing softly (to keep his chest from protesting further), the captain set the mug down and started scanning the crowds again. Based on the handwriting and good spelling inside the letter, the infamous Captain Jack Sparrow was being sought out by someone of class and at least a little learning. It was hard to look unconcerned and completely at ease as he awaited the arrival. It could literally be anyone from a concerned officer in the Navy to a terrified young lass concerned about her beau. Made it all the more interesting for Jack, though. He hadn't had any excitement in his life whatsoever since his run-in with Brun. Maybe tonight would mark the end of this madness, or maybe it would only result in Jack's death…or maybe it was about an unknown child he had. Who knew?

Obviously whoever it was certainly was taking their sweet time. It was nearly half an hour past the time when the letter had said he should arrive at this abysmally normal tavern. The strumpets busy combing the noisy place really were nothing spectacular. Most had on lots of the forbidden substance known as makeup. A respectable woman wouldn't be caught dead even wearing the faintest hint of rogue. It was part of what made it so easy for any willing man to figure out who was up for sale for the night and who would be an easy picking, since it was practically forbidden to speak of rape. Women who weren't loose who were used in that particular way often threatened to die of shame and almost never got over the ordeal they never spoke of to anyone. Those who sold themselves had killed their respectable sides years ago. That's why the heavily dolled up women often had a glaze to their eyes. They were quite like the heavily priced porcelain dolls at the local high-priced collectibles store. They'd lost the ability to feel. A horrible institution, to be certain, but it did pay the bills in a world where women weren't supposed to work at all. Women were supposed to be petted creatures, timid things that only needed their husband to survive. Since that's how the upper class believed, that was how the lower classes believed, even though centuries of mistreatment had resulted in quite a horrible time to be a woman. They were no more than objects, giant living dolls that produced offspring and looked pretty on one's arm.

Jack personally thought that was all ridiculous. Of course, he was quite the hypocrite indeed. The infamous pirate captain frequented taverns generally for two purposes: to get drunk and to spend the night with a fetching young woman who could help him forget all the worries being the captain of a large ship could bring. He paid his strumpets well, undoubtedly, but he didn't do anything to help them find another profession. There were only two women aboard the _Black Pearl_. He could always have more. Of course, he'd decided long ago that the best way to help a strumpet was to solicit her services and pay her far more than they'd agreed upon the evening before. Most of the deadened women would never accept charity. Something about selling themselves to live had made them feel dirty whenever someone did something nice to her. Since he'd rationalized his behavior, he didn't think twice about it. Of course, he wasn't in the market for a woman this evening.

He was just getting more and more impatient to learn who exactly had sent that letter. It wasn't very unusual for him to get the occasional note from someone wishing a meeting (he had a reputation for solving the unsolvable riddles associated with treasure maps) or to speak to someone fairly respectable, but no one had been seeking his advice on anything since the appearance of Brun a year ago. It seemed that Brun had become the new (and cruel) Captain Jack Sparrow in the Caribbean. He could solve any riddle faster than the infamous captain and could find the gold mentioned in treasure maps before some people even figured out the family heirloom had contained such a thing. Brun had even found the Isla de Muerta, unassisted, and had cleaned it of the remains of Barbossa's treasure that rightly belonged to Jack. Many in the Caribbean had dumbly assumed that would irk the quirky captain into action against Brun, but Jack was no fool. He had no need of the rest of that money, that which they'd already taken after his reunion with the _Black Pearl_ and he had no need of getting himself into a potentially stupid and fatal situation. Until, of course, his pride had been pricked to the point that he foolishly decided to do what everyone had expected him to do, from the beginning.

That hellish nightmare was certainly something Jack never wanted to repeat. He actually _had_ the opportunity to kill Brun, and he didn't take it. Now everyone thought he was a coward. A lucky coward, to be sure, but a coward nonetheless. Brun had bested the infamous Captain Sparrow. The only reason anyone bothered trying to get information out of him anymore was because of their curiosity as to _how_ he'd survived. If he could do it, perhaps they could. Obviously he had some sort of secret. You could tell that by the muted way he walked around now, as opposed to his cheerful sort of drunken swagger before the incident, and the fact that he wasn't wearing kohl around his eyes any longer. Captain Sparrow seemed to have lost his touch. Perhaps his escape from Brun was the last thing he'd ever do worth any mention at all. Everyone was dying to know so they could be the one to end the legend of the captain before he faded into one of those angry looking wizened drunkards that seemed to frequent every single tavern in the world. He'd no doubt be full of stories about his former exploits, but would pale at the mention of Brun. Not what he'd envisioned for his future. It involved no secluded paradise with a young woman and plenty of rum to boot.

Sighing, Jack sat back in his chair, trying not to think too much about how late the hour was getting. He didn't really think he'd end up labeled as a coward for the rest of his life. Once someone took care of Brun, people would be gossiping about his exploits and he would be immortalized, once more. Brun was just the flavor of the month, so to speak, and certainly wouldn't last, like Jack had. He'd been a pirate for almost twenty-four years. Hardly anyone could claim to have been on account that long and still have all extremities and most of his sanity left. That was something Brun could never claim or take away from Jack. The over confident lad might be able to steal Jack's thunder right now, but he'd inevitably die in some incredibly bloody conflict, to make up for all the blood he'd spilt. Right? Poetic justice or irony. Something along those lines would do Brun in.

Jack would be back on top inevitably. There had been that ten year interlude that he'd been relatively unknown in most circles of society, while he'd been biding his time to return and claim what was rightfully his. Barbossa had been the terror, then, and Jack had overcome him easily. Brun would be no different. It didn't matter that Jack had no intention to go after him and face embarrassment and probable death again. He'd be pulled into the fray, so to speak, as he always was and he would inevitably be the one to throttle Brun to death. Or maybe shoot the man with piercingly chilling blue eyes. He'd spent one day of his recovery time aboard the _Black Pearl _mulling over how good it would feel to get revenge on the man in a more suitable way. That had only lasted a fever driven day, though. Jack had no intention of going after Brun again. Besides, they'd found a letter when the _Pearl_ limped into Portobello addressed to none other than the infamous Captain Jack Sparrow. Pity the sender hadn't decided to sign even a hint of a name.

Of course, the person who had sent the letter could have a myriad of reasons to not leave a name. For all Jack knew, it could be from Admiral James Norrington (due to the vast amounts of British ships lost in battle with the _Terror_, promotions came fast). Though Jack doubted he'd actually bother trying to solicit Jack's help, it would explain why there was no indication as to who had sent it. Of course, the parchment hadn't seemed quite as fine as you'd assume from the desk of James Norrington. Perhaps it was from the recently-turned scalawag Will Turner. Or even his bonny lass, Elizabeth. It could even be from someone Jack hadn't ever met before, but the strangely personal manner the author of the note had written it in tended to say that Jack knew who was trying to solicit his help. Which made the fact that the person who was supposed to meet him being late that much harder to bear.

Jack was practically expiring from excitement. Every time the door to _Phelp's Tavern_ opened and someone else stepped in from the falling night, his eyes shone much like they used to on Christmas Eve when he was a small boy, struggling to fall asleep so that Father Christmas would leave a few candies or toys or something. When he realized that it was just another rabble-rouser or drunkard looking for a nightly fix, the look in his dark eyes was almost depressing to onlookers. It would only last for a moment, thankfully, and then his expressive eyes would feign a look of abandonment and mitigated disdain for the masses. That look was designed solely to keep the various curious people "casually" sending him looks asking for a conversation away. Jack was in no mood to talk to another Nate, as nice as the young man was, or to even speak to the lovely lass with auburn hair trying to get his attention three tables over. All he wanted was answers, but he had a rather annoying feeling telling him all he would get was questions.

Surely he knew how to beat Brun, since he'd escaped, right? That was one of the prevailing theories of Jack's most ardent supporters. Captain Jack Sparrow would undoubtedly be the man to save the Caribbean, according to them, and he would live forever in both infamy and fame for saving the lives of friends and foes alike.

Pity Jack thought nothing similar, eh? He didn't think he'd end up saving the Caribbean. All he wanted to do was continue living the way he'd been living since running away from home to become a pirate. If he happened to run across Brun again, well, maybe things would be different. The future of the Caribbean could be resting in his less than anxious hands, depending on whatever it was that would be discussed as soon as his guest arrived in this dismal little place where people could forget their troubles in a bottle of depressants that somehow seemed to make the world sparkle in these relatively perilous times.


End file.
